Development of BSCCO superconducting thick film using tape casting and thermo-pressing techniques

Flexible BSCCO (2223) tapes were prepared by doctor-blade casting and reinf orced through a thermo-pressing treatment at 80 degrees C and 15 MPa. Debon ding and sintering processes, usually risking the superconductor stability, were optimized in order to increase the relative density and the orientati on factor and to reduce the (2223) phase degradation. A limiting factor was found to be the number of layers stacked during thermo-pressing, that shou ld be less than or equal to 6. For these thick films T-c0 was measured appr oximate to 95 K. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.